City Adventurers

As people become saturated and fatigued by material things, experiences are the things that make us feel rich.

But what if those luxury experiences start to feel manufactured?

Instead of just looking for things to do, try looking for things to learn. Not necessarily traditional educations. How about acquiring a new skill?

Become accomplishment focused.

We need to get active, rather than passively observe. Happiness comes from doing.

But not just doing anything.

It has to be doing something that is meaningful to us.

In the case of Edwina Ings-Chambers something meaningful was taking a dance class. She writes in Red magazine she was “feeling the need for something more nourishing, something that brought out a bit more of me in myself……..There’s something about learning and being physical and creative with it that is totally engrossing and almost childishly liberating.”

Will Storr explains ‘There’s the idea of hedonistic happiness. Then there’s eudemonic happiness, which is this Aristotelian notion that happiness is the struggle to achieve, the perseverance, the striving.’

So it’s the striving to accomplish that brings the happiness. We need to be doing something that is not just meaningful, but something where we can get better over time.

And once we find that something, the happiness produced brings long term gains. As  Will Storr writes in The New Yorker, finding a meaningful project won’t just  bring pleasure “it might also bring a few more years of life.”